The Art Shanties of White Bear Lake

This past Saturday, a friend and I drove to a lake in the middle of winter and walked right off the pier and into the lake.

Rather, we walked onto the lake, for it was frozen solid. It was so solid that artists set up "art shanties" for their on-ice program. It's become an annual, artist-driven, temporary community of tiny houses. Each shanty is filled with works of art and music. 

A community of art-shanties closer to the shore

An art sculpture resting on the slushy surface of the frozen lake

What was particularly terrifying about this experience is that many of the art shanties are heated. Heated shanties resting on mere inches of frozen ice with a massive lake below all of that. Because that's a safe idea, right?! Some of them created a puddle of melted water underneath them, making it look as if they were levitating over glassy black water!

The "levitating" shanty"

Practicing my levitation skills.

What was neat about the whole experience (besides avoiding a fall into the lake and drowning) is that many of the shanties were highly interactive. There was one where you could take a nap in a cozy lofted bed. There was a human-sized birdhouse where you could hop on top of the "tree-trunk-sized branch" to enter the house and have tea in there. There was one that was designed to be a mini natural forest park reserve, complete with a river and mossy rocks. There was one with a tree inside where you wrote your fear on a paper leaf and tied it to a fake tree and one child carefully scrawled out "beeng alon", which was heartbreaking to read. Then there was one where you could graffiti whatever you wanted, so of course I had to participate!

I can't resist groan-worthy puns. I just HAD to.

Though Minnesota can be miserably cold, I truly appreciate all the things Minnesotans do to make it bearable and even fun!